INTEGRATED BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION FOR ACCESS TO COMPUTERS

摘要

The present invention is a system and a method for the use of a biometric feature as a key to grant access to a computer. The computer comprises a processor connected to a biometric sensor and a resource for operating the biometric sensor. The processor has a nonenabled state and an enabled state. In the nonenabled state the processor cannot execute applications loaded into memory from a hard drive. In the enabled state the processor can execute such applications. A user gains access to the computer and enables the processor by having a biometric feature input onto the computer using the biometric sensor. The resource that operates the biometric sensor then compares data representing the biometric feature to enrolled user data contained within the resource. If the data representing the biometric feature matches the enrolled user data then the resource switches the processor from the nonenabled state to the enabled state. If there is not a match then the processor remains in the nonenabled state.